By Christopher Cappiello

UNAIDS/WHO Report Offers Good News, Bad News

A new report from the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization shows that, while the number of people living with HIV/AIDS continues to rise, infection rates have decreased in areas where concentrated efforts have been made to improve both treatment and prevention.

"We are encouraged by the gains that have been made in some countries and by the fact that sustained HIV prevention programs have played a key part in bringing down infections," said Dr. Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director, at a Nov. 21 press conference in New Delhi, India, announcing the new report. "But the reality is that the AIDS epidemic continues to outstrip global and national efforts to contain it. It is clear that a rapid increase in the scale and scope of HIV prevention programs is urgently needed. We must move from small projects with short-term horizons to long-term, comprehensive strategies," he concluded.

AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 estimates that 40.3 million people are now living with HIV, with approximately 5 million new infections in 2005. The good news is that "determined and concerted interventions" have proven to be effective in decreasing infection rates in certain target groups and areas. The report points to successful, sustained efforts among young people in Uganda, sex workers and their clients in Thailand and Cambodia, injecting drug users in Spain and Brazil, and men who have sex with men in many Western countries.

While those groups have seen drops in infection rates, the epidemic continues to spread in other areas. Infection rates have risen by 25 percent in Eastern Europe and Central Asia since 2003, and by 20 percent in East Asia, the two biggest regional increases. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the hardest hit area, with more than two thirds of the world's HIV infections and 77 percent of women living with HIV/AIDS.

The new report, timed to be released just before World AIDS Day (Dec. 1), emphasizes how increased access to care and prevention efforts have a positive influence on each other. "Treatment availability provides a powerful incentive for governments to supportÑand individuals to seek outÑHIV prevention information and voluntary counseling and testing," said Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, director-general of WHO. "Effective prevention can also help reduce the number of individuals who will ultimately require care, making broad access to treatment more achievable and sustainable."

For more information, and to read a PDF of the entire 2005 UNAIDS/WHO report, visit www.unaids.org.

Police Stop March of Equality in Poland

Police in the Polish town of Poznan detained and interrogated 65 demonstrators, many of them LGBT activists, attempting to participate in the March of Equality on Saturday, Nov. 19, according to the Warsaw Independent News Agency. A week earlier the planned march was banned by Poznan's mayor, Ryszard Grobelny, who cited violent street riots at a similar event last year when extreme-right counter-demonstrators mixed with the marchers. Organizers decided to go forward with the march in spite of the ban.

"They were dragging us around on the street," one of the demonstrators told the Warsaw Independent. "I was put in a police car, driven to a police station, and charged with taking part in an illegal gathering." He told the agency that he faces a misdemeanor charge.

"The policemen brutally pulled sitting demonstrators from the group and dragged them along the sidewalk," the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish gay rights organization, said in a statement. That group's president, Robert Bierdon, was in Seattle at the time at an International Lesbian and Gay Association conference. "Sadly, the story is not unusual in Poland and many other Eastern European countries," he said, according to the Victory Fund.

Tadeusz Iwinski, a member of the Polish Parliament from the Democratic Left Alliance, has filed an official complaint with the federal government, claiming the police actions violate both Polish domestic law and European Union regulations regarding freedom of expression. In October the European Commission warned the Polish government that it risked losing its voting rights within the European Union if it didn't improve its record on gay rights.

Malaysia Says Transgender Wedding Invalid

In what is believed to be the country's first wedding involving a transsexual, the Malaysian government will not recognize the Nov. 19 marriage of Jessie Chung and Joshua Beh, according to the Agence France-Press (AFP). Chung, a nutritionist who operates a business in Kuala Lumpur, underwent male-to-female gender reassignment surgery two years ago, according to the Associated Press (AP).

"If I am not mistaken, this is the first time such a marriage has taken place in Malaysia," said Deputy Home Affairs Minister Tan Chai Ho to the Malaysian Bernama news agency. "Under the Marriage and Divorce Reform Act of 1976, their marriage is invalid," he said, citing the fact that Malaysian law does not allow transsexuals to legally change their gender on official identification papers. As far as the government is concerned, Chung and Beh are both male and same-sex marriage is not permitted in the Southeast Asian country.

Wedding planner Brian Choot told the AP that the couple spent more than $55,000 on an elaborate reception for more than 800 guests. He also said the couple will not protest the government ruling, adding that Chung "feels she has fulfilled her dream by holding a traditional wedding."

IGLHRC Shines Spotlight on Iran Hangings

Following last summer's highly publicized public hanging of two teen boys in Iran believed to be gay, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has called for a United Nations investigation into the mid-November hanging of two young men in Gorgan, Iran. "It's clear that a pattern is emerging in which young men are executed as couples and that the crimes they allegedly committed always involve some form of sexual assault of another male," said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of IGLHRC, in a statement. The IGLHRC is calling on European countries and the UN to demand more information on these and other alleged human rights violations in Iran. The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran.